WHERE WE ONCE STOOD

Karen Jones

Along the Metolius River, a huge Ponderosa leans onto a neighboring tree, precarious, its root system lifted halfway from the ground, the broad skirt spread wide and shallow, revealing a partial cave beneath.

The roots hang raw, broken, displaced, still clinging to their stones of possession, their clay of home in a reluctant goodbye to the soil, but hardly a scar appears on the bank, the depression healed with new grasses. As if the uprooting wasn’t much of a disturbance, as if the earth is accustomed to life’s comings and goings, its history soon adorned by other forms, its wounds of leaving softened and greened.

KAREN JONES is a teacher, poet, and life-long learner from Corvallis, Oregon. Some of her recent work has appeared in Green Ink Poetry, The Raven’s Perch, and Circle of Seasons. Her chapbook is entitled Seasons of Earth and Sky (Finishing Line Press).